The present invention relates to a device for heating flowing fluid or gaseous media. Fluid or gaseous media are used, for example, for the operation and lubrication of energy consuming machines and apparatus at temperatures, which often must be higher than the surrounding temperature. A heat exchanger is installed for this purpose.
A continuous flow heater is disclosed in DE-GM 79 16 927. It is used for electrically heating flowing media via thin cover tubes that are heated via heating elements. The cover tubes are surrounded by channels. This device is disposed in a two-part tubular housing. The channels have a relatively large cross-section and therefore the number of channels that may be placed about the cover tube is limited. The relatively large cross-section of the channels also requires a correspondingly long heating path for heating the medium that flows through. Furthermore, the number of components for this device is rather large.
These commonly known heat exchangers are relatively costly with respect to their acquisition and installation. They require a lot of space, and can often only be used, when the machinery or apparatus are in operation.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a device for heating fluid or gaseous media, which may be inexpensively manufactured, which may be easily installed in any piece of machinery, which does not take up much space, and which may be operable when the respective piece of machinery is not running.